


i feel so sorry, i feel so sad

by iamalystark



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aaron Hotchner Needs a Hug, Additional Warnings Apply, Dead Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan Needs a Hug, Dialogue Heavy, Emily Prentiss Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s04e03 Minimal Loss, Everyone Needs A Hug, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Spencer Reid, I'm Sorry, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sad Aaron Hotchner, Sad Derek, Sad Ending, Sad Jennifer "JJ" Jareau, Spencer Reid Angst, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 20:13:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamalystark/pseuds/iamalystark
Summary: In which Spencer is the one to say he's the FBI agent when Benjamin Cyrus walks in waving a gun.
Relationships: Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45





	i feel so sorry, i feel so sad

**Author's Note:**

> sorry-

"What did you do?" Emily whispered. Her hands were shaking. All she could process, all she could understand was that her hands were shaking. Her hands were shaking, and her face was wet. 

_"Which one of you is it?"_

"Did you know?" Cyrus asked her, the gun shoved in her face now. Her eyes flicked up to his, wide and shocked. Did she know? Did she know what? 

"I--I--"

"I'll take that as a no," he tucked it away, like he hadn't just--just--

_"Which one of you is the FBI agent?"_

"I never. . ." Emily trailed off. Her still shaking hand found its way up to her face. Her wet face. She thought it was tears, at first. She had to have been crying, right? 

Her hand came away red.

_"Why do you think one of us is an FBI agent?"_

"I didn't know. I didn't. . ." Emily whispered. Clearing her throat, she finally found her voice, clenching her bloody hand tightly. Her nails dug crescent moons into her palm, crimson gathering in the indentations and under her nails. 

_"God will forgive me for what I must do."_

With a jerked head movement toward the doorway, Cyrus began to leave the room. It took her a few solid seconds to realize she was supposed to be following him, forcing herself to swallow down the lump in her throat. An ache she'd never known wrapped itself around her heart, and it squeezed. 

_"I--I don't know what you're talking about."_

With stumbling steps, Emily followed him. She didn't look back. She was sure that if she did, her carefully crafted mask would break. And nothing, _nothing_ could fix it again. 

If she was being honest with herself, the woman didn't know what to do. Before, she was collected, she could keep her cool in impossible situations. After Interpol, she'd prided herself on the things she could do, on the emotions she could mask and push away, compartmentalize. Emily didn't know how to hide this. 

She didn't know if she could. 

_Emily could feel her heart beating out of her chest, her eyes locked on the gun. Swallowing, she opened her mouth to speak._

"You really didn't know he was FBI?"

Emily brought her bloody hand back up to her bloody cheek, and she tried to wipe it away again. It only served to smear across her face in a streak. "He--I--"

She thought of the team outside, listening with no idea that Spencer was gone. Spencer was gone. They didn't know.

_"It's me." No, no, Reid, what did you do? The gun is aimed at your--_

"In-In the two years I worked with her, Nancy never lied to me before," Emily said. She knew the team was listening. She didn't let them know.

_The gun fired._

* * *

Her ears were ringing. 

She could process two things now. Her ears were ringing, and her face was still wet. "Prentiss! Prentiss, are you okay?" 

Her eyes opened, the blading fire drawing her attention before Morgan's worried face did. He was speaking urgently, his voice low and panicked, and she knew she should be responding. Instead, she watched the fire, and she thought of Reid's body, eyes still open as he burned. 

"--ily, did he get out? Where is Reid, Emily?" They were standing, her ribs aching from the force of the blast as Derek threw her arm over his shoulder. 

They didn't know. 

"Did you know?"

_They. Didn't. Know._

"Emily!" That was JJ, in front of her, face worried, terrified. 

"He--I--" Emily sucked in a wheezing breath, and finally, the mask broke. She had known Spencer Reid for only two years, but his loss was worse than anything she'd ever felt. _Anything_.

"He said it was him," she whispered. 

_She kept whispering. Why? Had Spencer taken her voice with him when he left?_

"He said it was him, and he's gone. He's gone," she whispered, whispered, whispered. Her tears fell, and they did not stop falling. 

Maybe in another world, Spencer would be grieving her. Maybe in another world, they'd both be okay. Maybe in another world, she could have saved him. Maybe in another world, she'd be telling a mother about their dead daughter, instead of her family about their dead brother. 

This was not that world.

In this world, she grieved. In this world, JJ dropped to her knees at the heart shattering revelation, a sound escaping her that could only be of pure agony. In this world, Morgan pulled away from Emily as if burned, disbelief on his features, and he shook his head, tears already in his eyes because it _couldn't be true_. In this world, Rossi lost another son he never had, and his world broke apart. In this world, Hotch's mask cracked for the first time in front of the team, and nothing could fix him. 

Nothing could fix any of them, because in this world, Spencer Reid died, and it was something his ~~team~~ family would never recover from.

**Author's Note:**

> this is hot garbage


End file.
